Does economics have a problem with diversity? The example of Janet Yellen, the most powerful economist in the world, suggests not. But she doesn’t have much company at the top: Christine Lagarde at the IMF is a lawyer; Elinor Ostrom, the only woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, was a political scientist. Even when women win the highest elected office in the land, a woman has never run the US Treasury or been finance minister in either unified Germany or West Germany. Economics, it seems, is a particularly male bastion.
Is this just part of the age-old problem that women do not study mathematical subjects? In the UK, perhaps: girls are less likely than boys to study A-level mathematics. But in the US, the explanation doesn’t stack up. “Stem” subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — now award more degrees to women than to men at both undergraduate and doctoral level. Economics is a clear outlier.
A similar tale can be told for students who identify as belonging to ethnic groups such as Hispanic, Native American or African American. Such minority groups are less likely to receive economics degrees than degrees in other social sciences, humanities, business studies or Stem subjects. The same is true at doctoral level. There’s no getting around it: economics is, almost uniquely, the preserve of white or Asian men.
Why is this happening? One possibility is the self-perpetuating stereotype. As long as economics professors tend to be white men, women and minority students may feel that the subject just isn’t for them. Survey evidence suggests that women in the US are simply not as likely to find the subject of economics appealing.
There’s also the problem of implicit or explicit discrimination. Here, the evidence is mixed: such discrimination exists but it is not confined to economics. For example, one recent study (by Katherine Milkman, Modupe Akinola and Dolly Chugh) sent 6,500 emails to professors from a fictional student, requesting a 10-minute meeting to discuss applying to a doctoral programme. The emails were all identical except for the race or gender of the imaginary applicant. Generally, emails from white men were more likely to receive a response. But this was true for almost all subjects — economics was not particularly blameworthy.
On the other hand, a 2014 study, “Women in Academic Science”(by Stephen Ceci, Donna Ginther, Shulamit Kahn and Wendy Williams) found that academia had in recent years become a much more level playing field for women than was often claimed. But the study singled out economics as an exception, a subject where well-qualified and productive women continue to miss out on promotions.
If women or people from certain ethnic groups are being denied promotions because of discrimination, then clearly that’s unacceptable. But even if the main story is that economics is simply unappealing to women and to various ethnic minorities, that’s a concern. It’s important that everyone is represented in economics. Partly this is because economists tend to be well paid and at least somewhat influential. (You have to be a really prominent sociologist before the news networks want your opinion on anything much.)
Just as importantly, economics itself needs diverse views. Few endeavours ever benefited from an intellectual monoculture. That is an argument for mainstream economics to engage with other disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology — and heterodox schools of thought such as Marxism and Austrian economics. But it’s also an argument to engage with people who may see the world differently because of their race, nationality, sexuality, disability or gender.
The obvious reason for this is that when a group of very smart people with similar perspectives find themselves stuck, someone who brings a new intellectual tool or a fresh perspective is far more valuable than one more smart guy in the same mould. (This argument has been brilliantly and rigorously explored by the complexity scientist Scott Page in his book The Difference.)
But there are subtle gains from diversity too. For example, when psychologist Samuel Sommers conducted mock jury trials of a black defendant, with some all-white juries and some racially mixed juries, he found that the mixed juries did a much better job of analysing the information placed in front of them. But this wasn’t just because the black jurors brought a fresh perspective. It was because the white jurors felt under pressure to think rigorously and to justify their views.
This is yet another reason why white guys like me should want to see more diversity in the subject that we love. It’s not just about being fair to everyone. And it’s not even just that people with different perspectives can enrich economics. It’s that when we’re forced outside our cosy group of people who think and look just like us, we become better people.
Written for and first published in the Financial Times.
My new book “Messy” is now out and available online in the US and UK or in good bookshops everywhere.